Hi all,
In part 4 I shared about the identity crisis Satan brought to Adam and Eve. That identity crisis was a lie, but they believed it. We could say they wanted to fit in to a group. Satan told them they would be like God – what a great group to be part of! So they ate.
They were willing to leave the identity of who they were individually for the chance to be part of the ‘God group’, to be like Him.
Belonging to or fitting in?
Fitting in to a group is measuring people and figuring out how you can fit in. That’s what Satan brought to Adam and Eve. They were asked to measure themselves, measure their current standing with God, and figure out how they could fit in with Satan by being ‘like God to know good and evil’. Hmmm, what did they need to do to fit in? Eat the fruit. So they did.
When Satan offered a different identity by assuring them they could belong in the same class as God, to know good and evil – they left their God-given identity to make another identity and fit in with ‘that crowd’ (Satan’s kingdom).
If you belong to a group or person in a healthy way, you’ll never be asked to change who you are. Belonging actually celebrates who you are. Belonging requires you to be who you are.
Satan wasn’t asking Adam and Eve to belong, he was asking them to fit in – to his plan, his lie, his larger agenda. That’s what is diabolical about that part of emotional illness; it can offer a person what they want if they will only do what is needed to fit in. And that means changing who they are.
Satan wants to take away a person’s individuality because individuality reveals each person’s unique, God-given gifts. If he can get them to just fit in by giving up who they are individually, he can get them to identify with a larger dysfunctional group. Doing so can cover emotional or mental illness of that group. Group-think hides or masks emotional illness.
A healthy marriage will not ask a spouse to give up their personal identity, but celebrate 2 unique individuals learning to become one. Each will celebrate the other’s uniqueness as they belong to each other, building a life together, committing to grow and change as human beings.
An unhealthy marriage, friendship, family or work relationship will remove one’s individuality, so that a person doesn’t know who they are anymore. At work they feel like they are a robot. In marriage a servant or just a partner. In a friendship the one who is always giving but the other friend can’t reciprocate.
Helping people – how?
Satan offered a different identity to Adam and Eve. He wanted them to do something to fit into a group who would be he said, like God, to know good and evil. He lied to them, showing that a lie comes before a sin. A person believes a lie first, the sin follows.
When we see people, Christians or not, with emotional or mental issues, the root is an identity crisis coupled with them having believed a lie. They don’t know who they are as the Father created them. They don’t know His plans for them. They don’t know His great love for them. And they’ve believed an alternate identity of themselves.
They have chosen to identify with something else: Maybe it is self-hatred. Maybe it is narcissism. Maybe it is 8 hours a day on social media, thinking those are true ‘friends’. Maybe it is focus on 1 doctrine about end times or conspiracy, UFO or little green men, to the near exclusion of true relationships and life.
Healthy patterns
When a person believes a lie there is a certain amount of security in that. If a girl begins hating herself, she knows and is secure in what she hates and why. To un-believe the lie means stepping into the unfamiliar. “Love myself? I’ve never done that.” As one example.
They need someone to show them their individual identity in Christ. How the Father created them and gave them amazing gifts (Ephesians 2: 8-10). They need to know there is an answer. A person with wrong thoughts or unhealthy emotions who is also seeking answers, responds to someone they can 1, confide in, and 2, therefore trust.
It means helping someone who is off-balance emotionally or in their thoughts to show them how to restrain those unbalanced things in them. They need to be shown by that person how to think healthy thoughts and have healthy feelings.
Not always successful
Earlier in the series I talked of how Paul wrote to the Corinthians about his unhealthy thoughts and feelings. But how he came out of it by turning to the One who raises the dead. He was able to do that in part because he had people in his life around him, and praying for him.
Some people may decide un-believing a lie is too hard, to scary. But there are also those desperately wanting to be healthy, and they need someone or a small group to walk along the journey with them. They need to know before they were even conceived, the Father was thinking about them and knew His plans for them. (Jeremiah 1: 5, for instance)
Knowing the Father God is therefore the key to emotional and mental health. As mental illness and emotional illness become more common in societies, the need to know the Father God, and we can help them find Him. Doing so helps them find their true identity. Their true group who will celebrate who they are as an individual child of the Father.
Read, talk, listen
Read Ephesians chapters 1 through 3. Everywhere it says ‘God’, insert Father, for that is who Paul is writing about: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father…” (1:2) So everywhere you read ‘God’ insert Father. Stop at each verse. The Father sends peace and grace. The Father has blessed you with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies – what does that mean to you day to day? That all blessings are already yours. You don’t have to declare, confess, proclaim, fast, pray, give, participate or do anything – all blessings are already yours! Christ is already in you, there is nothing you can do to change or improve upon that.
Help that person see that – spend time in those first 3 chapters especially. Then talk to the Father: This is eternal life, to know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” John 17:3. “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and which His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. I John 1:3
Know the Father by talking to Him. Look for His involvement in your life by noticing the good things that happen to you through the day. Every good and perfect gifts comes from Him, James 1: 17 – look for the little coincidences, the favor, the grace, the timing in your life – then say ‘Thank you Father’ – involve Him in your life, thank Him, then be silent for a little bit, shifting attention to your spirit down inside you – sense that peace? Sense that ‘you’re welcome’? That’s Him.
Helping people to know their Father completes them, fills that hole in their heart, for He alone can fill that….skip the symptom and go right to the heart of the matter. Lead them to the Father, show them His involvement in your life, and lead them. John 6: 45: “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to me.” Help them hear and learn from the Father, and they will come to Jesus.
New subject next week, a bit lighter one, until then, blessings,
John Fenn